Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
Re: MJR on Linux/OSS
From: "Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com>
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 22:25:25 -0500
Devdas Bhagat wrote:
http://www.ranum.com/editorials/divide-conquer/ Summary: Diversity in interfaces is bad. Microsoft's consistent interface is good.
Devdas - your "summary" so profoundly mis-characterizes my rant that I'm not even sure it's a good idea to respond to it because it risks muddying the waters further. :( All I can do is urge people to read my article (if they care) and come to their own conclusions. A few comments, however. The article is not intended as a discussion of the merits or relative non-merits of a "monoculture". It's solely intended as a few rather nasty observations on the lack of discipline inherent in the Open Source movement and why I think that version fragmentation in open source O/S distributions is going to do profound damage to their ability to compete effectively for customers and midshare against the Windows juggernaut. In other words, the article is about business dynamics, not security dynamics.
The trouble with a single dominant monoculture is that it does increase the damage caused by a single hole. See blaster, and the long thread which was spawned by *that* on this list.
I think the whole concept of "monoculture" in software is, at this time, ridiculous. In offer my comments on that topic in another discussion here: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/monoculture-hype/ so please don't expect me to offer a nod to the notion of "monoculture." Although, I will say that the Linux/Open Source community appear to be dead set on proving the notion that, as variability in systems increases, system administration costs go off the chart. How many distros do you run simultaneously? Are you a glutton for punishment?
Oh, and Marcus: DLL hell ;)
To which I can only respond: 99.9% market share You appear to have not even actually read my article. Or else your passion and preconceptions have caused you to extract something from it that simply isn't there. I am not saying Windows is good. I am not saying Open Source is bad. I am saying that "if your premise is that you're offering an alternative to Windows, this is NOT the way to go about doing it." May I suggest that you go back and re-read my article in that light? mjr. _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
Current thread:
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS, (continued)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Christopher Hicks (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Darren Reed (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Marcus J. Ranum (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Devdas Bhagat (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Marcus J. Ranum (Mar 17)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Frederick M Avolio (Mar 17)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Darren Reed (Mar 17)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Marcus J. Ranum (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS R. DuFresne (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Devdas Bhagat (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS R. DuFresne (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Devdas Bhagat (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Marcus J. Ranum (Mar 12)
- RE: MJR on Linux/OSS Bruce Smith (Mar 17)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS R. DuFresne (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Marcus J. Ranum (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS R. DuFresne (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS David Lang (Mar 17)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Crispin Cowan (Mar 17)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Marcus J. Ranum (Mar 12)
- RE: MJR on Linux/OSS Bill Royds (Mar 12)
- Re: MJR on Linux/OSS Kevin (Mar 12)
- RE: MJR on Linux/OSS Paul Melson (Mar 12)